I have washed my hands every hour that I have been awake since getting off that plane. I use many different kinds of soap: Dial, Ivory, Basis, some flower-smelling stuff my wife picked up at Costco, laundry detergent if there’s nothing around.
Sometimes my knuckles crack and bleed, and the splits between my fingers hurt more every day. But I still can’t get them clean. I still feel the sand under my nails. I still feel the warm slick of my friend’s blood when I press my hands together to pray.
Like awkward fish, they swim past me in small suits, drifting in and out of my lane. Their father peers over the bulkhead, attempting an apology.
“I used to be a lifeguard,” I say. “I know how to evade.”
But later, when my streamline off the wall drives me almost directly into one of the small bodies, I sputter.
“Ladies.” I have never sounded more like my mother. “Swimming across my path is a really bad idea.”
She felt thorough this time, with her to do list and her notes. Organized. Powerful in knowledge.
She had left some things off that list, and that contributed to her evenness. This steadied her hand, her breath, her heart as she flipped the switch.
Never mind the wife, the kids, the dog. After she first saw him, it seemed like she had been put in his way for a good reason.
He didn’t ask for much the nights they were together, but didn’t offer much, either. At the time, it seemed enough. She ate underneath his table, hiding from the light like a fox. At night, she crept out, curled around him as she could, then retreated again to where he could no longer find her.
“I told my father he calls me cheeky, and my father said, ‘You better watch out. I don’t think that means what you think it means.’ And I said, ‘Of course I know what it means. He’s from South Africa. He means it in a funny way. He means that I’m sassy and combustible.’ It’s because I tease him all the time. He’s an old person, and he’s married. But he forgets that.”
Ahead on the road, a puff of exhaust took on the shape of a white cat walking the double yellow line. It disappeared as quick as a hiss.
On the seat next to her, her cellphone vibrated, bringing the incoming call about her sister.
She described good people as being like rising water. Good, clean water that lifts without taking houses, schools, churches, hospitals. Water that sparkles in sunlight, feels good between the toes, and makes a noise akin to giggling.
Those are the people, she said, who you want around you. Those are the people who keep you afloat.
100 Proof 